It. She. The city.

You can fall in love with a city. When she leaves you messages. When she opens up her doors to you. When she shows you kittens down the side streets.

What happens when she turns on you, though? All choked with pollution, the river sludgy green, the seagulls screeching and posters on the lamp posts telling you you should never be allowed to get married. It’s not like I can write a love poem to that.

My phone buzzes in my pocket. Two messages from Angel, another from my dad. I turn my phone off and shove it in my bag.

THIS WILL END IN TEARS, the walls of Dublin remind me as my sister and I walk back towards our bus stop.

7.

When Kate and I turn on to our road there’s somebody at our garden gate. Long black braids, big boots, men’s army jacket, slouchy shoulder bag, attitude as bad as her kisses are heavenly.

Angel O’Rourke.

She’s got a clove cigarette in her mouth, which is usual, but a single red rose in one hand, which is not. And on the lapel of her bottle-green jacket there’s a YesEquality pin.

“Hi, Kate,” she tells my sister, who greets her warmly as she goes into the house. She turns to me. “Hey, Sarah.”

I don’t know what to say so I kiss her, and she kisses me right back, out there in clear sight of anyone, right in front of my garden gate.

“I’m not saying you’re right,” she says when we break apart. “And I’m not taking back what I wrote. Look at your parents. Look at mine. Look at Matthew and the new kid, even Melody and Radha. How long do you think they’ll last? All these secondary school kids thinking this vote’s going to affect their relationships like they’ll actually be with the same people come September. Like they won’t end up divorced if they do actually marry.”

Angel’s dad and stepmum fight like cats in back alleys, all smashed glasses and ashtrays. Last week it got so bad that Angel’s been staying with her aunt again. Two-hour commute in rush-hour traffic from Clondalkin to make it to school on time.

I step away from Angel, creak the gate on its squeaky hinges. When I look up, she’s handing me a rose.

She says, “But maybe this is about more than marriage. Maybe it’s about more than love.”

“Yes equality, right? Not yes marriage?”

Her eyes crinkle at the corners when she smiles.

“So, does this mean you’ll join the committee?” I ask her. I slip her rose into the belt buckle of my jeans.

“Fuck no,” says Angel. “But I did hear what your friends were saying about the posters. And I think I have an idea.”

She tips her chin towards the black bin in the driveway, brimming with empty paint cans. “Don’t suppose your mum has a few of those spare?”

8.

Spray paint writes faster than Sharpie. You can make the words bigger, imitate the shining block capitals of the city. We aren’t allowed to deface the posters but what we do is realistically just as illegal.